Manure Pile

Originally uploaded by laundrylessons.

My pile got too big this weekend. All that laundry from Friday never got folded, and this is how my laundry room greeted me this morning. Seems there was a more pressing pile to deal with. A manure pile.

No joke, John loves manure. I didn’t say he was full of it; no he loves to spread it. We ordered five cubic yards, a small dump truck full, and had it delivered on Friday. The manure pile negated my laundry pile. Instead of folding the clothes, I was raking out piles of nutrient dense fertilizer.

Somebody’s pile is always bigger. My stuff gets put on hold a lot because the pressing piles of poop that must be dealt with. Baseball games, haircuts, trips to the dentist, shopping for birthday parties, all take me from the laundry, writing, and sleeping. Yeah, sleeping gets negated in this house too. I shouldn’t compare these bits of life with the manure pile, because it sounds bad to compare the kids’ stuff to poo. Well, until I remember what the pile of crud yields.

See we have the best looking landscape on the street. (Well, it’s John’s goal to have the best looking landscape on the street, but actually some of the professionally coifed lawns look pretty darn good too.) My basil plants grow four feet high, the perennials are full and lush, and the shrubs don’t die during the winter. The manure is the key. Yeah, it stinks and is a pain to put down but the stuff grows and grows.

All the crud I do as a mom will also hopefully produce healthy, lush kids. My little plants smell and make messes and have to be pruned and weeded, but I’m hoping that eventually they’ll stand out like well manicured lawns.